this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
[attr="class","intext"]A mistake, it was all a mistake. Maybe if he hadn't— Ah, they're all coming down, sharp teeth and sharp claws, their snarls rumbling in his chest. He does what he can. Expel trigger, the glass, anything, everything, but it's not enough. They bite down and he can't hear himself scream. Claws dig effortlessly into unprotected flesh and everything flickers and fades, reality drowned out by pain that blinds and chokes until he's not sure if he'll die of asphyxiation of blood loss.
Where's Maddox? Is he okay?
Eyes snap open but while he can see, he can't understand. Heart pounds too hard and eyes dart around. What's happening? Where is he? He flinches, cries out at the hands suddenly on his face. Thrashes with what energy he has, but hands hold him down and mana leaps immediately to his fingers because he has to get away or they'll kill him, tear him up—
"Sima, Sima, calm down, it's me! It's Aeris. You're okay, Sima. You're okay." He shushes him calm like he's a child. He's a mess of tears and he's shaking violently, but Aeris is like an anchor, a truly familiar face among the half familiar faces around him. Seen in meetings, around the ship, but never spoken to. Why are they here? "Your ring, it alerted us. You and Maddox—" And Sima's attention is immediately elsewhere. He pushes from Aeris, from the others, and scrambles to the body beside him. His hands shake too badly to find a pulse but when presses his ear to his chest he can hear it beat and gods, he just cries. "You've both been like this for hours. Asleep and completely unresponsive." Aeris was shaken, but calm. If he'd been panicked at the beginning, it'd clearly passed, but his worry and fear was still evident. "What happened?" Sima couldn't find his words as he pulled Maddox onto his lap and held him tightly, as if it might give him strength to the hell he was still in. Aeris was patient, though, as were the others.
"I-I don't know." He choked out, his own voice foreign to his ears, "I don't know, but it wasn't a dream. Whatever—" and his face twisted to an anger, a wrath, "—that was it wasn't a dream. It can't have been. Too real, gods, Aeris I felt myself die. I watched— I felt— I—I—" He fumbled, his thoughts scattering again as tears poured forth again
"Maddox is going to wake up any minute now." Sima couldn't hear the desperation in his voice, "And you both are going to be okay. We'll all be okay."
[attr="class","m2content"]his voice doesn't sound like his own -- it is too helpless, a crying, wailing animal, too desperate -- and the whispers gnaw at the edges, leaving them jagged, like the green-blue edges of broken glass.[break][break]
they're useless. destroy them.[break][break]
he has never been afraid of fire before ; familiarity with the forge breeds a kind of immunity, he thinks, but when the faceless executioner holds the flame up high, he stops breathing for a moment. distantly, there is one less scream; moments later, he cannot breathe--[break][break]
in the waking world, he holds his breath, body stilling in some visage of death; he will suffocate in the fire, if not burn alive first, but they will no longer hear him scream. after what seems like eternity -- something is out of place. a spot of cold against his forehead; another slides down his cheek. rain?[break][break]
maddox opens his eyes.[break][break]
for a moment, he can't process what is happening -- images play in the fire, taunting, laughing -- but he's alive, and sima is alive. "sima--" a single word, a name, so overdrawn in wonderment and worry and utter bewilderment and relief. he breaks off into a bout of coughing, hacking, so violent that he inadvertently wrenches himself from sima's grasp, as though there were still smoke in his lungs. but there isn't. there is no smoke, no blood, and,[break][break]
( 'for fuck's sake, sima is still alive.' even moosely sounds worried. somewhat. )[break][break]
he's glad that moosely is back, but he lacks the energy to come up with a response. the familiar begrudgingly retreats into silence.[break][break]
to the side, aeris lights a candle with a snap of his fingers. maddox flinches. aeris' expression smooths over into something unreadable, lips pressed into a thin line as he quietly herds the other coven members out of the room. "give them some space. they'll be okay."[break][break]
there is a disturbing amount of energy involved in propping himself up, and for just a moment, maddox remains frozen where he sits, before he moves to pull sima closer. it's a graceless, carelessly rough embrace. "sima, i-- there were so many-- they moved so fast, i couldn't-- i'm so sorry--"that i let you die.
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[attr="class","m2hov2"]ONE MAN'S OBSESSION IS ANOTHER MAN'S TRASH
[attr="class","intext"]Sima lets out a broken sort of wail when Maddox stills suddenly. Shaking hands still can't find a heartbeat, so he shakes him instead, crying. He can't die. They're so close! So close to this disaster night being over. Just wake up, that's all he had to do. Wake up—
Grey eyes suddenly stare back up at him, past him, following things Sima can't see, but relief crashes down onto Sima and oh so carefully touches Maddox's face, like he might disappear if he held him too firmly. Was this real? Or was this all still part of the nightmare? Horror choked him, but hearing Maddox whisper his name with such wonder and relief, he can't help but think this one has to be real. He wants this one to be real, even as Maddox tumbles into a fit of coughing that tears him from Sima's gasp. The witches around them tense, step forward seeking to help, and Sima is on the cusp of snapping at them to back off when Maddox breathes again, deep gasping breaths, and he forgets again those other in the room with them.
Maddox is so warm. He can feel sweet Maddy's heart racing and he counts each beat with thanks. And then come the apologies. He wants to assure him that it's okay, that it wasn't his fault, because it wasn't, but he can't. He's shaking so violently, heart pounding in his head. He can still hear the crowd, the tigers, he can feel their claw, their— He grabs fistfuls of Maddox's shirt and buries his face into his shoulder and tries to stop his own racing mind. Breathe, breathe. But he can't because every breath catches on a lump that rises further and further until it's tumbling from him one mess of broken sentences and thoughts frankensteined together after another and then he's just crying again. It's a mix of terror, confusion, and just absolute relief, and for once he doesn't try to stop himself. They just went through hell. They both deserved to cry themselves unconscious.
Eventually, he stops, and his head throbs and his eyes burn but he's too tired to cry anymore. Not tired enough to sleep, though. "I need coffee." He slowly lets go of Maddox and crawls off of the bed and to his feet. "Food, too." as he stepped out of the bedroom and to the common area, he was surprised at how empty it was. Had those other witches left? Just how big was the problem? How many others? How many didn't— Stop. He fills his head with nonsense to avoid the question hanging above like a guillotine blade.
"What uh what do you want to eat?" He'd stood in the kitchen for several moments before remembering why he was there and what he was supposed to be doing. His head was full of static wool and he couldn't focus, couldn't think, but an ache gnawed at his gut and a restlessness settled firm in his limbs. He couldn't sit around forever.
[attr="class","m2content"]he doesn't realise that he is shaking, but he is, trembling and choking on tears but awake and alive. maddox finds his voice some time later, sima's forehead pressed against his shoulder; the room is empty now, both coven members and aeris bidding a quiet retreat upon confirming the fact that they are indeed, somehow, alive. he cannot manage more than a whisper, but his grip tightens where he holds sima's hands; he speaks with the rasping, broken voice of a man drowning in quicksand who had just felt ground beneath his feet."it's-- we're-- gonna be okay."[break][break]
lines of gold filter through the blinds, dawn breaks slowly outside. he focuses on the way light stalks sima's skin, sunlight dancing through the filter of tears ( he hadn't noticed he was crying before, but he is now, ragged and raw choking draws of breath ). he echoes, again, this time steadier, "we're gonna be okay." [break][break]
he doesn't recognise his voice. it sounds like a stranger, lying through gritted teeth. but the tears stop anyway, and he supposes he's simply run out of tears to cry. there is space in his bones for only so much grief; the rest will have to wait.[break][break]
eventually, sima untangles himself from his embrace, and maddox follows slowly after. he is suddenly conscious of the solid ground, the cool wooden panels against his feet, and a moment later, the sharp strike of hooves against floorboard as moosely takes the liberty of materialising. the hulking familiar is a comforting sight, but even he seems dwarfed by the expansive emptiness of their living room. it's not always like this; it's almost as though there's something missing, but he can't quite place it.[break][break]
"um. anything's fine, really." it's almost disconcerting, the way they're discussing breakfast right after that. whatever that was. he paces the length of the kitchen, restless and unaware of his own movements; a finger traces the contours of the tabletop and chairs, subconsciously reminding himself that this is real, he's not dreaming, this is real.[break][break]
he opens his mouth as if to talk. closes it again. seems to consider, lips parted, then aborts the motion within the next half a second. maybe he's being silly, maybe it was all a really, really bad dream, some prank played by an irrationally powerful athenian. maybe. his eyes drift across the room; aeris is slumped in a chair, a book propped up on his knee, and would look perfectly unconcerned if not for the fact that he looks up every now and then, brows creased into a concerned, fatherly frown. only pearlie's presence, draped firmly across aeris' legs, seems to be keeping the man from moving across to talk to them. maddox isn't sure if he has the energy for that.
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[attr="class","m2hov2"]ONE MAN'S OBSESSION IS ANOTHER MAN'S TRASH
[attr="class","intext"]No preference from Maddox was nice because at the moment it translated to "no effort". Where Sima would normally cook, he simply grabbed a box of cereal, and poured them a couple bowls. He slumbed down at the table and moved the cereal pieces to him mouth one by one with his hands. Idle, repetitive, his mind completely elsewhere as his body moved on its own. Memories played on loops, only for him to suddenly interrupt the horrible thoughts with nonsense, but they inevitably began again. He couldn't get his hands to stop shaking, which was one of the reasons he ate with them now instead of a spoon. The other was that he'd forgotten the spoons were generally considered necessary for cereal. He forgot they even existed.
"That...that wasn't a dream, right?" He finally said, quiet as a whisper. While earlier he'd insisted it was real, now he wasn't so sure. "Did you, uh, did we see the same things?" What if they didn't? Was it really all then just a dream? The one in a million chance where it was lucid, vivid, and somewhat coherent? He wondered if the other people he saw even existed and if they did, what would they do if they saw each other in the street? Would he feel comfort at a familiar face who went through the same hell or would he feel fear at the memories their sight brings around? "What do we do now?" He ached. His chest felt like it was being torn apart from the inside out and maybe if he wasn't so exhausted, he would've cried again from the sheer anxiety and fear of what happens next. "How am I— How am I going to sleep after that?" He laughed bitter and humourless, "It can't have been just a dream, right? I— I felt it, Maddox. I don't know what I'm going to do if that was all just a dream. It was so—" And he cut himself short and took a few breaths before beginning to eat again. It gave him a sensation to focus on and it kept him from voicing his racing thoughts, from making them real. He could ignore the possibilities as long as they were in his head, but it felt like if he spoke them he made them real, and that wasn't something he could cope with.
[attr="class","m2content"]"thanks," he says, quietly and barely above a whisper, when the bowl of cereal slides to a halt before him. it remains untouched. storm-grey eyes are vacant and unfocused, staring past sima; he hears, distractedly, the sounds of pages slowly being turned in the background, the scratch of paper against paper. some distant part of him wonders what aeris is reading. some other part of him cannot comprehend the solid table, and is instead acutely aware of the way his chest rises and falls with his breathing ( but somehow, it doesn't feel like his own ). but the table, the chair, the ground beneath his feet -- those feel like they could give way any moment. it is a strange feeling.[break][break]
when sima begins talking, maddox almost stops breathing; jerks his head up with so sudden a movement his neck twinges in protest; focuses on sima's voice with sudden, disconcerting sharpness, hears his bitter laughter, like broken glass stuck in his throat. bleeding. then he speaks, quietly, confirming, "i saw the same things. i think." and there is no need to say that those things are, those unspoken things because you can hear it in their voices -- their crippled animal voices, running on shattered legs. you can hear the broken bones.[break][break]
he can't lie to sima. "i don't-- i don't think it was just a dream," maddox says, and there is a hesitancy to his tone that makes himself uncomfortable. he hates it; the feeble, thread-bare sound of his voice, the helplessness. his nails dig red cresents on the base of his palm. "and even if it was, or if it wasn't -- i don't know." he doesn't know how he's breathing, let alone talking. "we make do. i guess. go on living until that shit comes for us again."[break][break]
there is a rustle at the edge of the room: aeris has moved to stand by the windows, the curtains half-drawn, staring outside. maddox looks beyond, just before his father moves to block the outside -- the sharp black edge of a casket. funerals at dawn. "lucky fucks. at least they don't have to deal with this." living.
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[attr="class","m2hov2"]ONE MAN'S OBSESSION IS ANOTHER MAN'S TRASH
